401
(k) plan is a private pension plan jointly funded by employers and employees.
Enterprises set up a special 401 (k) account for employees, and both employers
and employees deposit money into the account. For the savings in the account,
employees can buy stocks, bonds, special time deposits and so on. When
employees reach the retirement age, they can receive their 401 (k) account
deposits in the following ways: one-time, installment and deposit. Since it was
put into practice, the plan has encountered many development crises and gone
through many reforms. It has contributed to American businesses and employees
to varying degrees.

The
United States is an early western country to implement the pension policy.
There are various pension plans in the United States, among which the
individual saving pension plan is the most influential. The most representative
pension plan in this kind of pension plan is the 401 (k) plan. 401 (k) plans
are private pension plans jointly funded by employers and employees. The name
comes from section 401 K of the internal revenue service act of 1978.
Specifically, the plan stipulates that enterprises should set up a special 401
(k) account for their employees, and both enterprises and employees should
deposit money into the account. Employees get their 401 (k) savings when they
reach retirement age. The plan also allows employees to invest all of their 401
(k) accounts in a variety of investment programs and markets to increase the
value of their personal assets. All in all, the program has brought obvious
benefits to the enterprise and employees.

401
project attracted a large number of large companies like enron, most American
companies use the plan to replace the traditional pension plans, according to
the analysis of the plan, it is developing rapidly in the United States and
success thanks to the following: compared with the traditional pension plan,
401 plan has the following advantages: first, the company overall assets rise,
because the workers regularly account capital injection of $401 to his own, and
most of the money into the account of some investment projects or market; Secondly,
the cost of the plan is low. The traditional supplementary pension plan for
enterprises is all funded by the employer, which has a high cost. In contrast,
the 401 plan is jointly funded by the employer and the employee. Third, the
flexibility is strong, employers and employees can determine the annual
adjustment of the amount of savings, savings can be stopped at any time,
increase or decrease. 401 (k) plans bring more benefits to enterprise
employees, including: compared with traditional pensions, 401 (k) account funds
are investable. Traditional enterprise pensions are registered according to the
proportion of employees' monthly salary and do not invest in pension funds.
Although there are certain investment risks in 401 (k) plans, such investability
makes it possible for employees to increase the value of their funds.
Automatically deduct part of salary for retirement. 401 (k) plans require that
retirement savings be automatically deducted from an employee's salary so that
retirement benefits are guaranteed. Pre-tax savings, deferred tax. When
employees deposit their pre-tax income into their 401 (k) accounts, they are
entitled to deduct or deduct the income tax of the current period, and the
added value of the deposit is not subject to the income tax of the current
period. This deposit requires higher taxes and penalties to be collected before
retirement, but not at retirement age. Most corporate employees don't usually
receive their 401 (k) before retirement unless they are in serious financial difficulties.
Companies provide matching funds for their employees' 401 (k) accounts. The
company sets up a special 401 (k) account for employees. Both the employer and
the employee contribute to the account. The employee injects no more than 25%
of his/her salary into the 401 (k) account every month. Specifically, if an
employee injects $1 into his or her 401 (k) account, the company injects 0.25
to $1 of matching funds into the employee's account. Employees enrolled in 401
(k) plans can see how much their employer has invested in their 401 (k) account
at any time, including the amount, date and details of their savings. 6.
Diversified investment channels. In terms of the investment and application of
401 (k) plan assets, the assets of the plan can be invested by enterprises in a
centralized way, or invested by employees themselves, such as buying stocks,
bonds and special regular storage. If the enterprise adopts centralized and
unified investment, the enterprise itself is bound to bear greater
responsibility. Therefore, the independent investment mode has increasingly
become the main investment mode of 401 (k) plan investment in the United
States. According to relevant regulations, enterprises must provide more than
three kinds of investment projects for employees who participate in the plan
when using their own investment accounts. But typically, companies implementing
the program "offer their employees two or three investment options. 7.
Strong portability. 401 (k) pensions are more portable than traditional corporate
pensions. If the employee leaves the employer, the 401 (k) and savings account
will be transferred with the employee. Employees can also transfer their 401
(k) savings to an individual pension or other eligible account. And traditional
company annuities plan can harm those employees that change a job frequently or
the employee that wants to change a job, because traditional company annuities
is the salary scale that presses employee individual every months makes
register, working seniority is longer, salary is higher, annuities is more. If
an employee wants to go to another company, he can't take his old company's
pension account with him.

From
the advantages of 401 (k) plan listed above, it can be seen that 401 (k) plan
is undoubtedly an active pension plan for American enterprises. So, has the 401
(k) plan encountered any survival crisis since its implementation?

For
the United States, 401 program, like many other new things, it is also a touch
stone across the river, it is difficult to control the social practice, the
occurrence of enron in 2001 is a loophole in the 401 project has developed to
the qualitative change of the situation, the case occurs, the 401 plan was
basically paralysed, crisis frequently. In view of the huge impact of enron bankruptcy
case, this paper takes this case as an example to illustrate the crisis
encountered in the implementation of 401 (k) plan.

Strategic
crisis: putting all your eggs in one basket by mistake. In December 2001, the
United States for running a serious loss of enron bankruptcy, its shares,
making the company's stock holders, and most of the shareholders is the
company's employees, the company employees will be their "eggs in one
basket", they use their most of the 401 account deposit bought enron's
stock, and the company provide matching funds are all in the form of the
company shares into the staff's 401 accounts. Enron was doing so is considered
the maximization of corporate interests, it wants to dig up the potential
benefits from 401, and from none known 401 employees on its own independent to
make reasonable and effective investment idea, whatever the reason for most
employees will be 401 money into the stock market, the company will all eggs in
one basket, it is ready for employees. Whatever the reason for enron's
bankruptcy, for enron's employees to lose both their jobs and their pensions,
enron's bankruptcy overshadowed 401 (k) plans. In fact, there is no direct link
between the company's financial crisis and the demise of 401 (k) plans. The
company's financial scandal will affect the company's stock market and even
bankruptcy, while the company's stock price decline and bankruptcy will
directly affect the survival and development of 401 (k) plan. The most direct
and fatal reason for enron's bankruptcy is the uncontrolled financial
supervision. It has been revealed that enron's earnings fraud and uncontrolled
financial supervision accelerated the pace of bankruptcy, damaged the interests
of employees in its 401 (k) plan, and resulted in the disappearance of 401 (k)
pension.

Last
but not least, there was the trust crisis. Most employees of enron invested
their 401 (k) savings into the company's stock market out of their trust in the
company, which meant that employees correspondingly took the risk of stock
decline or even stock market crash. Compared with other investment projects and
markets, the stock market was more risky. Enron's bankruptcy wiped out 401 (k)
employees' pensions. The 401 (k) plan is overshadowed by the selfishness and
corrupt incompetence of enron's top management, who in 2001 prevented employees
from selling shares in the company during the stock market crash. This kind of
corruption at the top of the company costs ordinary employees a lot. Imagine if
enron employees had known that their company's 401 (k) plan would fail. If the
company had less control over 401 (k) withdrawals, employees would be more
willing to handle early withdrawals and early consumption. After enron's
collapse, employees in its 401 (k) plans lost their jobs and their pensions. At
some point, people will think that 401 (k) plans have no credibility and that
401 (k) plans need to be reformed.

In
2001, the federal government passed the "economic growth and tax reduction
coordination act", which provided for the reform of employee pension since
2002. The main purpose of the reform was to strengthen the role of private
employee pension plan in the pension system of the whole American society. The
bill makes major changes to the U.S. private employee pension plan. Under the
act, 401 (k) plan participants will receive more benefits from 2002. On August
27, 2002, President George w. bush signed and implemented the enterprise reform
act, which provides more stringent provisions on the management of enterprise
pension plans.

To
sum up, 401 plan itself is an active pension policy, and its introduction was
caused by the social environment and social demand at that time. However, with
the continuous development of society, the social demand for this plan shows
diversity, which requires not only strict financial supervision, but also
diversified investment methods. In short, the plan is required to keep up with
the development of society and keep pace with its realization. 401 plans to
meet all kinds of crisis in the process of practice this is inevitable, if it
is enclosed into the social security system of the whole country, and then
compared with the security system of other countries, 401 plan with the British
system and the practice of China's enterprise annuity system have similar
experiences, of the British poor law was during the industrial revolution was
not adapt to the development of the society at that time and endanger,
frequently revised three times in a row. 401 (k) plan is generated under the
background of modern society, so no matter what crisis it has, it will continue
to innovate and keep pace with the development of modern society.